News and Media

How to dispose of mercury-containing products in Australia

How do you dispose of mercury? If that’s not a question you’ve ever thought about, then it’s time you did. Nearly all of us use products that contain mercury, and the decisions we make at the end of the lifecycle of those products determines whether the mercury gets safely recycled and used again, or if it ends up polluting our already degraded environment. Identifying problem items The first step to the safe disposal of mercury is to identify the main mercury-containing products that that …

How much mercury does Ecocycle recycle?

Mercury is an element. It doesn’t break down or decompose or otherwise get turned into something else. It can form compounds with other elements, of varying degrees of toxicity and stability, but all the mercury in the world has been part of the Earth since it formed billions of years ago, and will still be around for billions of years yet. Because it’s toxic and permanent, the most sensible way to manage the threat posed by mercury is to keep it out of the natural environment as much as p…

What Can You Recycle This Christmas?

All the things that come with Christmas including the presents, the food, and your family are approaching fast. Unfortunately, this also includes the aftermath of waste (and possibly a hard pinch to your cheeks from an elderly aunt). While we can't help you with your cheeks, we can definitely help with the waste. We've put together a quick Christmas recycling guide for households to get them through the 2015 holiday season. Reusing And Recycling Wrapping Paper Christmas wrapping with metall…

Why Australian law needs to adapt to tackle e-waste issues

The amount of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) in Australia is growing out of control. While some efforts are being made to tackle the e-waste mountain, recycling targets are often modest and only apply to selected categories of e-waste. Take the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) as an example. Its target is to recycle 80% of computers and TV sets entering the waste stream each year, but that goal isn’t due to be met until 2026-2027, a full 10 years away. …

How we can stop Australia’s e-waste problem from getting worse

Australia has an e-waste problem. According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, we are generating e-waste three times faster than all other forms of waste. Electronic or electrical waste is any device that can connect to a power supply. In other words, if it has batteries or plugs into a power point, it’s destined to eventually become e-waste. The leader of the study, Professor Graciela Metternicht of the university’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Scienc…

5 things your local council should be recycling

We are all familiar with the usual recyclables that most councils collect – paper and cardboard, steel and aluminium cans and plastic bottles – but the possibilities don’t end there. Here are five types of waste that councils can (and should) be adding to their recycling lists. 1. Lighting waste Here, the focus is on recycling mercury-containing fluorescent lighting, mainly fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) to reduce mercury pollution in the environment. However, other …

10th anniversary of the adoption of Minamata

Recycling Dental Amalgam Couldn’t Be Easier

For over 20 years Ecocycle has been collecting and recycling the mercury from dental amalgam waste and to us, it's more than just a job. Each year an average Australian dental surgery produces around 1kg of amalgam waste containing about 500g of mercury metal. It takes just one gram of mercury to contaminate a billion litres of water, so you can understand why we are keen to ensure that all dental amalgam waste is properly recycled. From the dentist's point of view, the whole process could…

REES provides more opportunities for Australian electricians

SA’s REES Scheme Opens Up New Opportunities For Sparkies

The South Australian Retailer Energy Efficiency Scheme (REES) commenced on the 1st of January 2015, and will run until 2020. It requires larger energy retailers to help households and businesses save energy, opening up new opportunities for electrical contractors. REES Covers A Lot Of Options Under REES, energy retailers can offer a wide range of energy efficiency improvements, from installing or topping up insulation through window replacement to lighting replacement and upgrades. It is, h…

What Elephant Seals Teach Us About Our Mercury Waste

Scientists in California have discovered that seawater has become polluted by mercury 17 times above normal levels. Año Nuevo State Reserve has a large elephant seal population and local researchers found that when elephant seals go through their annual moult, the fur and skin they shed contained so much mercury that the level of mercury in the seawater surrounding their colony became poisonous. It’s a dramatic reminder of just how effectively marine animals take up and store mercury we du…

Dentists, When Was The Last Time Your Amalgam Filter Was Serviced?

Amalgam separators are so unobtrusive it’s easy to forget that they are there. Connected to the drainage system of dental chairs, all they need is the power of gravity to trap dental amalgam and prevent large quantities of mercury from entering the environment. Because your amalgam separator works away quietly in the background, many dental clinics forget that their dental amalgam filters need to be serviced and cleaned regularly. As it does its job collecting amalgam waste, your amalga…

Five Things Building Managers Can Do To Help The Environment

Commercial buildings are a significant source of waste, and in multi-tenanted buildings anything beyond basic waste collection is often left up to the individual businesses. However, it’s easy for building maintenance managers to introduce some simple initiatives that provide value to their clients and a payoff for the environment. 1. Champion A Battery Recycling Program Batteries contain a mix of valuable and toxic materials, yet Australia has a really low rate of battery recycling. It sho…

How The NSW Energy Savings Scheme (ESS) Benefits Sparkies

Electrical contractors in New South Wales wanting to boost business should take a look at the Energy Savings Scheme (ESS). It provides a significant financial incentive for businesses and home-owners to undertake activities that reduce their energy use. How ESS Works When an eligible activity that reduces electricity consumption is completed, energy savings certificates (ESCs) can be created. These are then sold to ‘liable parties’ such as electricity retailers. This means contractors can offe…

Australia, The Fourth Biggest Producer Of Municipal Waste: Let’s Do Better!

Did you know the average Australian produces 647 kg of municipal waste every year? According to a recent report, Australians are the fourth biggest producer of municipal waste in the world, only lagging behind Denmark, the US and Switzerland. While not all that waste comes from rubbish bins at our homes (some of it represents municipal waste created by businesses), it is still a sad indicator of just how wasteful we are, especially when comparing our results to Estonia and Poland, which pr…

Riches From Old Batteries And E-Waste

Recycling is an increasingly important part of our economy, for two major reasons. For one, it plays a major role in preventing the environmental pollution that occurs when hazardous materials are dumped. The second is that it recovers valuable resources for reuse. Batteries and electronic waste (e waste) contain a complex mix of materials that creates quite a challenge for recyclers. However, there are effective solutions for battery recycling and e waste recovery that help to feed our vo…

How Fluorescent Tubes Are Recovered By A Lamp Recycler

Disposing of fluorescent tubes, lamps and bulbs is a particular concern as they contain the highly toxic metal, mercury. At any given moment there are billions of light globes and fluorescent tubes lighting up our lives, but old light bulbs and tubes eventually give up the ghost and create a mountain of waste. Fortunately, lamp recycling is not only possible; it’s also highly desirable. That’s where Ecocycle comes in. The Fluorescent Lamp Recycling Process Even today, with all our knowledge…

What Can 22 Million Recycled Phones Do?

If you have any old phones that you want to throw away, you can find drop-off points on Mobile Muster's website here, or print off reply paid labels and post them in. Recycling Electronics– More Than Just Phones There is far more to e waste disposal than just mobile phones. Think of all the printers, computers, TVs and electronic toys that contribute to our e waste management problems. Electronic recycling solutions exist for all of these items too. Various programs exist for recycling e wa…

Five Types Of Old Batteries Your Workplace Can Easily Recycle

Our modern world relies on all sorts of batteries, from the little button cells that go into hearing aids through to huge, shipping container sized batteries that provide industrial-scale backup power. And that reliance is increasing as we develop stronger attachments to a growing suite or electronic devices. Battery Recycling Is Here To Help All those batteries will eventually hit the end of their useful lives and, if we continue our current habits, most of them will end up in landfill. Th…

What Ireland Can Teach Us About Fluorescent Bulb Recycling

In Ireland, retailers that sell compact fluorescent lamps and tubes are required to offer a free recycling service. For each bulb or tube purchased, retailers are obliged to accept an equivalent tube or lamp for recycling. As a result, about 30% of fluoro lamps and tubes are recycled in Ireland. While that’s a lot higher than the estimated 5 - 10% recycling rate in Australia, it’s still not a rate Ireland is happy with. Aiming For The Other 70% To lift the fluorescent lamps recycling rat…

What Can You Recycle In Your Office?

How does your office rate when it comes to recycling? Is it a one-bin, out-of-sight-out-of-mind, somebody else’s problem type of office? Or is it a reduce-reuse-recycle sort of place where everyone separates apple cores from drink bottles and nothing ever goes in the wrong bin? Chances are it’s somewhere in between, and even though we might all want to do the right thing, it’s often inconvenient or confusing. But not only can you recycle more things in your office than you might have thoug…

Is Fish Sperm The Next Big Thing In Metal Recycling?

A group of Japanese scientists have started experimenting with salmon milt (sperm), believing it could be used to recycle valuable rare earth metals as part of the electronic waste recovery process. Nothing Goes To Waste Not only is fish milt a rich source of DNA, the fishing industry in Japan discards thousands of tonnes of milt each year as a waste product. It’s plentiful, cheap and environmentally friendly. It sounds pretty bizarre, but it turns out that many metals can actually stick to DN…

The Easy Way For Businesses To Recycle X-Rays And Film

Like most areas of imaging, X-rays have gone digital, but there are still large quantities of old, silver-based X-ray film filling up storage space in hospitals and radiology centres around Australia. Just as vinyl records still have their fans, silver-based films remain in use in some parts of the imaging industry. If you're an Australian business - whether it be a hospital, a radiology clinic or any other health service that uses X-ray imaging, then you could be sitting on a pile of X-ray f…

The Ecocycle world class purpose build Batch Process Distiller distills recovered mercury waste for safe transport.

A Major Step Towards A Cleaner Dental Industry

The Industry is pleased to announce a ground-breaking agreement that will help to significantly reduce the amount of toxic mercury that enters the environment. All major companies that currently supply amalgam retention cups to dentists, Cattani, Ritter Dental with their Metasys range and Dürr (on behalf of their agents) Henry Schein, Ivoclar, Sirona and William Green, have entered into signed exclusive agreements that will ensure their amalgam retention cups will only be sold on a replacemen…

South Australian Sparkies Lead The Way On Fluoro Recycling

South Australia is widely recognised as a leader in recycling and waste reduction. Its famous 10 cent deposit on drinks containers has been in place since 1975 and checkout-style plastic bags were given the flick in 2009. Since 2010, bans on dumping a growing list of waste types in landfill have given recycling rates a further boost. The South Australian bans are pretty broad, from paper, cardboard and a range of plastics, through medical waste and liquid waste to “vegetative matter col…

Electricians Win More Tenders with ISO 14001 Accreditation

Proper disposal of mercury waste plays a crucial part of protecting our environment, so it won’t come as any surprise that, as Australia’s leading lamp recycler, Ecocycle is committed to the highest standards. That’s why we are accredited to the internationally recognised environmental management standard ISO 14001. What may be less obvious is how our accreditation can help electricians win more business. What is ISO 14001 Accreditation? ISO 14001 is an international standard that helps org…

It’s Easy To Recycle E Waste

While an important part of our everyday life, technology is always changing and evolving. Today’s new big thing is tomorrow’s electronic waste, and we are producing mountains of the stuff. Computers, TVs, phones and tablets contain a mix of both valuable and hazardous materials. It’s really easy for businesses to responsibly manage electronic waste disposal with a tailored waste management program. Recycle Your E-waste In Two Simple Steps With two quick steps your e waste management prob…

FluoroCycle: Cleaning Up Australia’s Lighting Industry

According to the Lighting Council of Australia (LCA), Australia’s peak lighting industry body, 90-95% of mercury-containing lighting waste is sent to landfill. To help do something about that appalling figure, the LCA established FluoroCycle. FluoroCycle is a voluntary product stewardship scheme. It aims to increase the level of fluorescent lamp recycling by targeting the commercial and industrial sectors where the bulk of waste lamps are generated. FluoroCycle Targets Both Commercial Use…

Six Things You Should Know About The National Television And Computer Recycling Scheme

1. What Is The National Television And Computer Recycling Scheme? The National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS) was established in 2011 and provides Australian households with access to collection and recycling services for old televisions, computers and other related equipment. 2. What Are The Goals Of The Recycling Scheme? The NTCRS sets annually increasing targets for the proportion of TV and computer waste that is collected for recycling. Strong demand from the public has …

What Can Supermarkets Recycle?

In an ideal world supermarkets would sell everything that they buy. There would be no waste, and supermarket managers wouldn’t need to worry about recycling. In the real world, supermarkets need to dispose of millions of cartons, damaged goods and large amounts of food hitting its expiry date. On top of that, supermarkets generate a variety of waste in the same way that any business does. Recycle Cardboard Cartons aren’t such a big deal, and supermarkets have been returning cardboard carton…

Trisa Thompson, Dell's vice president of corporate responsibility. Image Credit : www.greenbiz.com

How Dell Is Tackling The Global E-waste Disposal Problem

Did you know that in 2014 the world produced 42 million tonnes of e-waste? It’s a figure that is set to grow with our insatiable appetites for electronic gadgets and a growing, more affluent world population. Fortunately, the electronics industry is taking this issue seriously, and one company that is setting the pace on recycling and recovery is Dell. Legacy Of Good In 2013 Dell released its Legacy of Good plan. It addresses a range of issues, from biodegradable packaging to massive reduct…

How Frogs Helped Invent Batteries

The story of the invention of batteries nicely illustrates how an unexpected observation can stimulate curious minds and lead to new inventions with world-changing results. It begins in 1780 with Luigi Galvani dissecting a frog attached to a brass hook. When he touched the frog’s leg with an iron scalpel it twitched. Galvani’s friend, Alessandro Volta, thought that it might have something to do with a moist connector (the dead frog) joining two different metals. That led to further experiment…